All Questions
Tagged with glacier or glaciology
26 questions
11
votes
2
answers
5k
views
How could this pyramidal Mountain have been formed?
How could this pyramidal peak have been formed in Antarctica? Little is known about it as far as I know but what is known is that its miles away from any existing plate boundary and its shape is also ...
- 213
29
votes
1
answer
6k
views
Why does glacier ice look blue?
The color of the ice observed in glaciers, icebergs and crevasses is often blue. However, ice cubes and industrial ice blocks are perfectly transparent or white if not.
So. Why does glacier ice look ...
- 17.7k
8
votes
1
answer
412
views
The giant 6,000 km$^2$ iceberg A-68; will ground-truth telemetry supplement satellite tracking data?
update 2: FIRST images of A-68 iceberg not taken from a satellite in space but from the air are out. On this NASA Earth Observatory web page are areal images from NASA's Operation IceBridge taken from ...
- 6,904
7
votes
1
answer
8k
views
If ALL the ice melted, what percentage of the Earth's surface would be water?
At the present time, about 70% of the earth's surface is liquid water (perhaps that includes floating ice around Antarctica, and the Arctic Ice cap).
What percentage of the Earth's surface would be ...
6
votes
0
answers
480
views
How much of Earth's surface would be covered by water if all ice melted? [duplicate]
I'm trying to find how much water would be on the surface of Earth and how much surface would it cover (how much land will remain) if all the ice at the North and South Poles (and everywhere else) ...
- 69
3
votes
1
answer
61
views
What (if any) "in-situ instrumentation" is on the Brunt Ice Shelf that will detect its splitting and breaking away?
The BBC News article Antarctic: No role for climate in Halley iceberg splitting says:
With no-one on the ice surface, notice of any breakaway will have to come from automated in-situ instrumentation ...
- 6,904
30
votes
3
answers
10k
views
How would an icicle "grow" upwards?
The other day a friend of my dad's showed him a picture of an icicle that appeared to be "growing" upwards out of a crack in a sidewalk. There were no roofs, overhangs or vehicles parked near by... It ...
- 684
19
votes
3
answers
1k
views
How do we know that we are NOT in an "Ice Age?"
Historically, the earth has had five "Ice Ages" Each of them lasted millions, tens of millions, or hundreds of millions of years.
The last ice age reportedly ended perhaps 10,000 years ago. That ...
- 2,244
18
votes
1
answer
1k
views
Can glaciers be less than 30m thick?
The wikipedia page on Ice-sheet dynamics claims that:
Ice will not flow until it has reached a thickness of 30 meters (98 ft)
And this geography website claims that
To be called a glacier, a ...
- 2,583
18
votes
2
answers
852
views
Is this 70km crack in an ice shelf of Antarctica remarkable, or a regular occurrence?
I've just seen the LiveScience article 70-Mile-Long Crack Opens Up in Anatarctica. I'm not sure if the title is a bit sensational or not, the crack is in an ice shelf, not the continent of Antarctica.
...
- 6,904
15
votes
2
answers
4k
views
Why doesn't sea level show seasonality?
North-hemisphere ice-shelf melts on summer and grows on winter. I would expect appreciable changes on sea-level between seasons, but sea-level looks equal on winter than on summer.
Why doesn't sea ...
user12525
14
votes
3
answers
6k
views
How will sea level rise be distributed across the globe?
Sea level rise from melting glaciers will not be uniformly distributed across the globe. However, it isn't clear to me what places will have the most and least extreme changes in sea level rise. I ...
- 14k
13
votes
2
answers
2k
views
When will glaciation resume? Has global warming delayed return to global cooling?
As far as I understand, we are currently living in the Holocene, an interglacial period of the Quaternary glaciation, i.e. the current ice age that has so far lasted 2.6 million years. The Holocene ...
- 230
13
votes
5
answers
2k
views
When will the Final Ice Age happen?
As the Sun's luminosity slowly rises, the Earth's surface temperature will climb. Will Earth ever be too warm to have any more glacial periods? If so, when will that be?
Edit: The existing answer ...
- 232
11
votes
3
answers
5k
views
How long to melt all the polar ice?
The answers to this question say that the sea level will rise 66m if all the polar ice, etc, melts.
How long will this take?
Transporting incredible amounts of heat energy to the poles and injecting ...
- 239
10
votes
4
answers
450
views
Considering how old the Antarctic ice cover is, why isn't it much thicker?
The Wikipedia article on the subject of the "Antarctic ice sheet" says that:
The icing of Antarctica began in the middle Eocene about 45.5 million
years ago and escalated during the Eocene–...
- 211
8
votes
1
answer
4k
views
What would it be like to live in an ice age?
If you were born in the most recent ice age, how different would your life be compared to how you live it today? Furthermore, if humans currently lived in an ice age, how would it affect life today?
- 485
7
votes
2
answers
876
views
How do perennial rivers in high alpine areas maintain year round flows?
We have several perennial rivers in my country that originate out of high altitude alpine glacier melt. I can understand snow or glacier melting in the summer to increase the flows but it is observed ...
user1066
7
votes
1
answer
336
views
How old are Chile's fjords?
Do we have any knowledge about the age of Chile's fjords, more specifically, those found near the Northern Patagonian Ice Field?
Is it reasonable to conclude that they were formed in Quaternary given ...
- 193
7
votes
2
answers
1k
views
How does ice-penetrating radar "see" through kilometers of ice without being absorbed?
The BBC News article Isolated lakes found beneath Canadian ice sheet links to the open access Science Advances article Discovery of a hypersaline subglacial lake complex beneath Devon Ice Cap, ...
- 6,904
6
votes
1
answer
172
views
Giant Cavern the Size of Manhattan Under Thwaites Glacier in West Antarctica
Avery Thompson writes in Popular Mechanics
In Thwaites’ case, that radar uncovered a gigantic cavern between the glacier itself and the bedrock below it. That cavern is likely filled with air much ...
- 2,359
6
votes
2
answers
1k
views
How do glaciers move? Could Antarctica be separated?
Consider the example of the Larsen Ice Shelf. Ice platforms are attached to glaciers such that they prevent surrounding warm air from directly melting the glaciers. This is an important aspect of ice ...
- 211
4
votes
1
answer
106
views
Giant Cavern the Size of Manhattan Under Thwaites Glacier in West Antarctica - how was satellite and airborne radar data combined?
This is a follow-up question to Giant Cavern the Size of Manhattan Under Thwaites Glacier in West Antarctica.
The work is reported in an open access paper in Science: Heterogeneous retreat and ice ...
- 6,904
1
vote
1
answer
94
views
Help understanding radar data in subglacial lake complex beneath Devon Ice Cap
The BBC News article Isolated lakes found beneath Canadian ice sheet links to the open access Science Advances article Discovery of a hypersaline subglacial lake complex beneath Devon Ice Cap, ...
- 6,904
1
vote
0
answers
85
views
If its ice sheet were removed under modern atmospheric conditions, what climatic and ice-sheet equilibrium would be re-established over Antarctica?
Note the use of the term removed instead of melted—as in, any excess water is moved to where it can't cause trouble, either through the use of advanced technology (space elevators, et cetera) or for ...
- 355
1
vote
1
answer
142
views
Is "Chasm One" the really the name of this feature on the Brunt Ice Shelf?
The BBC News article Antarctic: No role for climate in Halley iceberg splitting says:
With no-one on the ice surface, notice of any breakaway will have to come from automated in-situ ...
- 6,904